


The Road Ahead

by Hatswithpompoms



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I say inspired its more like a crossover, Inspired by The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27997665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatswithpompoms/pseuds/Hatswithpompoms
Summary: Dean finds himself in a barren wasteland of grey. All he can do is walk, and watch as the horrors unfold and wait for whoever put him here to let him out. Maybe he's back in hell?So basically I read 'The Road' and this happened. You don't have to have read the book to read this. I would recommend reading it though.





	The Road Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently finished reading 'The Road', by Cormac McCarthy, and this idea came to me shortly after finishing, and I had a bit of time, so I wrote this. Please be warned, it is kind of depressing, if only because 'The Road' is very depressing, but still a very good read. I definitely don't live up to McCarthy's brilliant writing, I hope you enjoy anyway though.

Grey. It was all grey, as far as the eye could see. Ashes drifted like leaves on the wind and trees lay dead and blackened. Dean looked around frantically, for something, anything that wasn’t dead. Or grey. First, he shouted, as loud as he could, until his voice was hoarse, but nobody answered. He couldn’t remember any hunt that might have led to this, but he supposed whatever it was Sam and Cas’ would figure a way out for him. He tried to walk forward, thinking he might be able to find someone to help him, but his legs stuck and refused to move. He began to experiment, trying to wave his leg in every direction and found that he could walk. But only in one direction.

Soon, he passed a man sat in the middle of the road, fried and burned and brain dead. Dean tried to get his attention, but he seemed not to notice. He didn’t seem to notice anything. For a few more minutes he tried. Then he gave up and examined the road the man sat on instead. It was melted and twisted. The man’s footprints led up to where he had stopped, and Dean could see the melted tar on his feet. Eventually he moved on and left him behind.

He soon wished he hadn’t. A man lay dead on the side of the road. A single gunshot wound bubbling in his skull. Once he saw him Dean found he couldn’t move. His feet stuck to the ground once more. So, he stood there, until more of them came. Dressed strangely like the dead man and riding an old, battered truck. He stood frozen as they surrounded the corpse, poking and prodding it. They didn't see him, and one of them even walked through his arm. He supposed that was one positive, some ancient instinct told him he didn't want to be seen by these men. As they looked at their fallen friend he expected remorse and anger to be splattered on their faces. Instead, there were the slim, hungry grins of predators, of cats that caught themselves a cow. The kind of smile a vampire got right before they sank their teeth into your throat. Dean watched, still unable to move, as they cut up their dead associate and began to boil him over a well made fire. He felt sick. They were eating people. And by their movements, their lack of hesitation, this was not their first time. Yet, they were human, completely so. Dean swallowed and stepped back. He could move.

He took advantage of this and practically ran along the road. He walked as fast as he could until he saw a procession of an army of men wearing red. With slaves and an entire horror show trailing behind them. He stared as one stumbled and was beaten and pulled back up with vague, loud, vulgar shouts. It was the kind of cliched scene they put in movies with slave processions. That didn’t make it any easier to watch. Eventually they passed, and he breathed a breath of relief. But neither the cannibals nor the red men prepared him for what he saw next. 

He knew it wouldn’t be good when his feet started to lead him off the road and towards a lone farmhouse. He walked through the porch, where a lamp swung in the breeze, squeaking slightly like every horror movie that ever existed. He walked into the house and found a large pile of clothing, all different sizes and shapes. He remembered high school history. All of them sitting in complete silence. One of the only lessons he’d paid complete attention to. His feet lead him past the pile to a locked basement, and straight through the door. He walked slowly down, trying to get images from years of hunting out of his head. The smell hit him first. It was human excrement and rotting corpses, and the smell of despair. Then he turned the corner and he wished he hadn’t. Naked men and women all crouched against the back wall, and on a mattress near the door a man with one burned stump where his leg should be. He was murmuring in his sleep, begging, crying for help.

At least in Hell most of them had deserved it. 

He turned to run, but his knees buckled and he bent over and vomited. The acid smell of his own stomach joined the others in the room and he knelt there panting for hours. He called for Cas’. He called for Sam. He called for Bobby. He called for his mom. In one desperate attempt he even called for God. 

But nobody answered.

And then the basement door opened. Dean shut his eyes and ran. He ran until he couldn't. And then he walked. Still in a world of grey. 

He walked along the road for days. In whatever form he was in he didn’t need to eat or drink or sleep. It was just a constant exposure to the world of grey. The only colour the deep red that often splattered on the ground. Severed heads on pikes. A burned baby roasting on a spit. A mangled corpse washed up on a shore. The procession of cars, killed in an instant by whatever had wrecked this world.

If this was hell they should use this all the time. It wouldn't have taken 30 years if they had. 

It was there that he stopped walking. At the bridge of melted cars. There that he gave up trying to get to the end of whatever sick, twisted creation he had been thrown into. He was done. With everything. 

“Please,” he said, voice hoarse and cracked, “Just stop this. Tell me what you want. Why are you doing this? Please? Just tell me? Just let me out” He sank down onto the ground and stared down at the grey below him. He was so tired of grey.

Then he was standing. On a road watching a man cough blood into the dirt. And there was a rumble, slow at first but building. Dean had only felt something like it twice before. Screeches in an abandoned garage and a seedy motel room. Only this was slower, deeper, older. And he could feel the words beneath it. 

**This is what will happen if he wins.**

He was standing in the dark grey, watching as the same man lay dying. His son sat crying above him and Dean watched. He watched as the son begged for his father to take him with him. Begged his father to kill him. He watched until the man was dead and cold in his son’s arms. He watched, but he didn’t see some unnamed father and son. He saw Sam. He saw Bobby. What would they do in a world like this? What would it do to his brother? What would it do to his –

He turned back to where the son had stood up and was wiping his tears with an unhappy frown. And then he was in the motel.

The colours in the room hit his eyes in an explosion. He had never loved motel wallpaper as much a he did then. He blinked back the tears and sat up.

“Dean?” Sam was staring at him from the other side of the room, “Are you ok?”

Dean stared at his brother. He was surrounded by books, and his laptop. His hair was tied back in two buns and he had a pencil stuck behind one ear. He was watching him with a concerned expression. Dean stood up and walked over without speaking.

“Dean?”

He hugged Sam with everything he had. Blinking wasn’t doing much to stop the tears anymore. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, “Please understand. I love you and Bobby and Cas. Please remember that.” He released Sam from the hug and looked straight into his eyes. “Please.”

“Dean I don’t understand what do you mea…” Sam’s voice trailed out of earshot as he went outside of the motel. He shut the door and walked a few paces. Then he put a hand on his car to steady himself and looked up at the sky.

“Yes” 

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it! I hope you enjoyed it. Or at least passed some time reading it.


End file.
